“Run, you Injun, run!” bawled Bo. “What’d I tell you? We ain’t got ’em goin’, oh, no! Hittin’ ’em on the head!”
Bill dropped a slow, teasing ball down the third-base line. Jake Thomas ran desperately for it, and the ball appeared to strike his hands and run up his arms and caress his nose and wrap itself round his neck and then roll gently away. All the while, the Natchez runners tore wildly about the bases and the Natchez supporters screamed and whistled. Muck Harris could not bat, yet he hit the first ball and it shot like a bullet over the infield. Then Slugger Blandy came to the plate.
The ball he sent out knocked Grace’s leg from under him as if it were a ten-pin. Whisner popped a fly over Tay Tay Mohler’s head. Now Tay Tay was fat and slow, but he was a sure catch. He got under the ball. It struck his hands and jumped back twenty feet up into the air. It was a strangely live ball. Kelly again hit to shortstop, and the ball appeared to start slow, to gather speed with every bound and at last to dart low and shoot between Grace’s legs.
“Haw! Haw!” roared Bo. “They’ve got a hole at short. Hit fer the hole, fellers. Watch me! Jest watch me!”
And he swung hard on the first pitch. The ball glanced like a streak straight at Grace, took a vicious jump, and seemed to flirt with the infielder’s hands, only to evade them.
Malloy fouled a pitch and the ball hit Sam Wickhart square over the eye. Sam’s eye popped out and assumed the proportions and color of a huge plum.
“Hey!” yelled Blandy, the rival catcher. “Air you ketchin’ with yer mug?”
Sam would not delay the game nor would he don the mask.
Daddy sat hunched on his soap-box, and, as in a hateful dream, he saw his famous team go to pieces. He put his hands over his ears to shut out some of the uproar. And he watched that little yarn ball fly and shoot and bound and roll to crush his fondest hopes. Not one of his players appeared able to hold it. And Grace had holes in his hands and legs and body. The ball went right through him. He might as well have been so much water. Instead of being a shortstop he was simply a hole. After every hit Daddy saw that ball more and more as something alive. It sported with his infielders. It bounded like a huge jack-rabbit, and went swifter and higher at every bound. It was here, there, everywhere.
And it became an infernal ball. It became endowed with a fiendish propensity to run up a player’s leg and all about him, as if trying to hide in his pocket. Grace’s efforts to find it were heartbreaking to watch. Every time it bounded out to center field, which was of frequent occurrence, Tom would fall on it and hug it as if he were trying to capture a fleeing squirrel. Tay Tay Mohler could stop the ball, but that was no great credit to him, for his hands took no part in the achievement. Tay Tay was fat and the ball seemed to like him. It boomed into his stomach and banged against his stout legs. When Tay saw it coming he dropped on his knees and valorously sacrificed his anatomy to the cause of the game.
Daddy tried not to notice the scoring of runs by his opponents. But he had to see them and he had to count. Ten runs were as ten blows! After that each run scored was like a stab in his heart. The play went on, a terrible fusilade of wicked ground balls that baffled any attempt to field them. Then, with nineteen runs scored, Natchez appeared to tire. Sam caught a foul fly, and Tay Tay, by obtruding his wide person to the path of infield hits, managed to stop them, and throw out the runners.
Score—Natchez, 21; Madden Hill, 3.
Daddy’s boys slouched and limped wearily in.
“Wot kind of a ball’s that?” panted Tom, as he showed his head with a bruise as large as a goose-egg.
“T-t-t-t-ta-ta-tay-tay-tay-tay—” began Mohler, in great excitement, but as he could not finish what he wanted to say no one caught his meaning.
Daddy’s watchful eye had never left that wonderful, infernal little yarn ball. Daddy was crushed under defeat, but his baseball brains still continued to work. He saw Umpire Gale leisurely step into the pitcher’s box, and leisurely pick up the ball and start to make a motion to put it in his pocket.
Suddenly fire flashed all over Daddy.
“Hyar! Don’t hide that ball!” he yelled, in his piercing tenor.
He jumped up quickly, forgetting his crutch, and fell headlong. Lane and Sam got him upright and handed the crutch to him. Daddy began to hobble out to the pitcher’s box.
“Don’t you hide that ball. See! I’ve got my eye on this game. That ball was in play, and you can’t use the other.”
Umpire Gale looked sheepish, and his eyes did not meet Daddy’s. Then Bo came trotting up.
“What’s wrong, boss?” he asked.
“Aw, nuthin’. You’re tryin’ to switch balls on me. That’s all. You can’t pull off any stunts on Madden’s Hill.”
“Why, boss, thet ball’s all right. What you hollerin’ about?”
“Sure that ball’s all right,” replied Daddy. “It’s a fine ball. And we want a chanst to hit it! See?”
Bo flared up and tried to bluster, but Daddy cut him short.
“Give us our innin’—let us git a whack at that ball, or I’ll run you off Madden’s Hill.”
Bo suddenly looked a little pale and sick.
“Course youse can git a whack at it,” he said, in a weak attempt to be natural and dignified.
Daddy tossed the ball to Harris, and as he hobbled off the field he heard Bo calling out low and cautiously to his players. Then Daddy was certain he had discovered a trick. He called his players around him.
“This game ain’t over yet. It ain’t any more’n begun. I’ll tell you what. Last innin’ Bo’s umpire switched balls on us. That ball was lively. And they tried to switch back on me. But nix! We’re goin’ to git a chanst to hit that lively ball, And they’re goin’ to git a dose of their own medicine. Now, you dead ones—come back to life! Show me some hittin’ and runnin’.”
“Daddy, you mean they run in a trick on us?” demanded Lane, with flashing eyes.
“Funny about Natchez’s strong finishes!” replied Daddy, coolly, as he eyed his angry players.
They let out a roar, and then ran for the bats.
The crowd, quick to sense what was in the air, thronged to the diamond and manifested alarming signs of outbreak.
Sam Wickhart leaped to the plate and brandished his club.
“Sam, let him pitch a couple,” called Daddy from the bench. “Mebbe we’ll git wise then.”
Harris had pitched only twice when the fact became plain that he could not throw this ball with the same speed as the other. The ball was heavier; besides Harris was also growing tired. The next pitch Sam hit far out over the center fielder’s head for a home run. It was a longer hit than any Madden’s Hill boy had ever made. The crowd shrieked its delight. Sam crossed the plate and then fell on the bench beside Daddy.
“Say! that ball nearly knocked the bat out of my hands,” panted Sam. “It made the bat spring!”
“Fellers, don’t wait,” ordered Daddy. “Don’t give the umpire a chanst to roast us now. Slam the first ball!”
The aggressive captain lined the ball at Bo Stranathan. The Natchez shortstop had a fine opportunity to make the catch, but he made an inglorious muff. Tay Tay hurried to bat. Umpire Gale called the first pitch a strike. Tay slammed down his club. “T-t-t-t-to-to-twasn’t over,” he cried. “T-t-t-tay—”
“Shut